Willow's Choice

A Mother

A shy and lonely girl who was the queen's niece. A girl who had lived in this very room, slept in this very bed. A girl who was tall, thin, with long brown hair that was wavy at the ends. Big green eyes that seemed to hold perpetual sadness. And a sad smile—the kind of smile people give when they're trying to convince everyone, including themselves, that they're fine when they're really not.

Her name was Willow. Willow Montgomery.

And as her memories settled into my mind, as her life became as familiar to me as my own had been, I realized something that made my blood run cold.

Damn, I know this story.

I'm that horrible extra character from a book of stories I read on my way to work.

It had been a collection, one of those fantasy omnibus editions you can download cheap on your phone. I'd read it during my commute, during lunch breaks, during the lonely evenings in my apartment. It had been escapism, nothing more—a way to pretend

I was somewhere else, someone else, anywhere but my own disappointing life.

This book had several different stories, but they all took place in a fantasy world where elemental magic existed. A world so unlike my own that I'd never imagined I'd actually be here, living it.

There were five elements in this world: fire, metal, wood, water, and earth. People were born with affinities to one or more elements, though most had none at all. The ability to use elemental magic was rare, precious, a sign of noble blood and ancient lineages.

This particular story had been about the royal family, and how several families at court sought to associate with them through marriages, alliances, and political maneuvering. It was a story of court intrigue, of power plays and careful social climbing.

The kingdom of Kensington had good kings and queens for the people, which often distanced them from the court. They cared more about their subjects than about the opinion of nobles, which made them beloved by commoners and sometimes resented by aristocrats. King Oberon and Queen Eliana of Kensington had a son named Kieran , who was abroad for his studies, preparing to one day take the throne.

The queen had only one niece, the daughter of her only sister. Her only close living relative besides her husband and son.

That niece was Lady Willow Montgomery.

And now, somehow, impossibly, that niece was me.

Despite all the attention she received as the daughter of a duke and the queen's niece, Willow had a rather timid and submissive personality. She'd been raised to be quiet, to be agreeable, to never cause problems or make waves. Her father, busy with his duties, had left her upbringing to tutors and governesses who'd taught her that a lady's greatest virtues were silence and obedience.

For this reason, she had accepted an engagement at fifteen, simply to avoid problems. Just fifteen years old—still a child, really—and already her future had been decided for her. She had grown up believing that marriages had to be arranged, that love was a foolish notion from romantic novels, that duty and family obligation were all that mattered.

She had had no problem with that. She didn't care. She just didn't want to have problems with anyone, didn't want to be the cause of conflict or disappointment.

She had even found out about her fiancé's infidelities with another young lady of the court and hadn't even stood up for herself. When her maid had come to her with tears in her eyes, having witnessed the young lord kissing another woman in the garden, Willow had simply thanked her for the information and asked her not to speak of it again.

She had argued to anyone who asked that she preferred to remain silent rather than suffer shame or receive pitying glances. Better to pretend not to know than to acknowledge the betrayal and become an object of gossip and sympathy.

Of course, that marriage—when it finally happened—became a living hell for her. Her husband had continued his affairs openly, flaunting his mistresses, spending the Vane fortune on his lovers and his gambling debts. And all of this had led the Vane family to bankruptcy and ruin.

In the original story, Willow had been barely mentioned. She was just there, in the background, a cautionary tale about what happened to weak-willed noblewomen. The story had focused on other characters, on more interesting people with agency and power and the will to fight for what they wanted.

But now I was her. Or she was me. Or we were somehow both, two lives merged into one.

I looked down at my hands. No ring.

I don't have a ring on my hand... maybe I'm not married yet...

Hope flared in my chest, bright and desperate.

If so, hahaha, a new life for me... well, and if I am married, I'll become a widow... or divorced... it's an opportunity I won't let pass...

I'd died once already. I'd felt the life drain out of me on a cold street corner, all for a phone that didn't matter, in a life that had been going nowhere. I'd been given a second chance—an impossible, magical, inexplicable second chance.

And I wasn't going to waste it.

In this life, I will fulfill my greatest dream...

A dream I'd never spoken aloud in my previous life. A dream that had died a little more with each failed relationship, with each year that passed, with each negative pregnancy test followed by relief instead of disappointment because how could I bring a child into my mess of a life?

I'll be a mother.

The words echoed in my mind, a promise and a prayer and a declaration all at once.

Yes. In this life, no matter what it took, no matter what I had to do, I would fulfill that dream.

I would be a mother.